Dear Professor Amore,

After swearing off love forever, I recently made the acquaintance of an attractive, charming, well-endowed (financially, I mean) gentleman who expressed an interest in a closer friendship and perhaps more. Oh, how I long to give in to this feeling, and let myself be carried away by his deep brown eyes! But my heart, Professor – my heart has been so bruised by rejection, my timid heart simply cannot take any more pain. How can I let myself love again, and also protect my heart from breaking under the strain?

Sign me -

Contemplating Another Romantic Disappointment In Atlantic City

PS. If I may be so bold, what is your full name?

Dear CARDIAC,

Congratulations on the delightful news of the dashing new man in your life. As always, it seems, love warms the iciest of souls, heals the deepest of wounds, and melts the hardest of cheeses. Madame, it pleases me greatly to inform you that protection for your heart is just a Mark of Fitness MF-140 Heart Rate Monitor away. Simply strap this ingenious device around your chest with the included belt-strap and set your preferred high and low heart rate limits. Should the frequency of your pulsebeats fall below or surge above these limits, an alarm will sound to warn you that your tender heart is in danger. The sturdy MF-140 is water resistant, appealingly styled, and indicates the heart rate, day, date, and time in an illuminated display. For less than the price of a Pullman berth on the Great Lakes Express, your heart need never be caught unawares again. My advice to you, my dear: inhale deeply of love’s heady vapors, imbibe hearty draughts of its intoxicating brew, inject bounteous syringefuls of its exhilarative narcotic – and set the Mark of Fitness MF-140 Heart Rate Monitor on sentry duty ‘round your heart!

Yours,

Professor Amore

PS. My joint Castilian and Tuscan extraction has bestowed upon me the full name of Donaldo Juan Amore di Casanova. But given my ample, robust libertine’s carriage, my special friends have been known to address me by the rather less euphonious sobriquet “Fats.”

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